


i'm working on drawing a straight line

by orphan_account



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-08
Updated: 2010-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:39:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They come for him in the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm working on drawing a straight line

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Frightened Rabbit's "Backwards Walk"

They come for him in the night. They come for him in the middle of the night, Arthur tucked out in his apartment, and they bypass a gamut of security, snatch him up in his sleep. Arthur barely has a chance to wake before there's a bag over his head, before hands are digging into his wrists, and he's taken, kicking out, useless, into the world outside.

When the bag's off his head, he's tied to a chair in a warehouse that looks like every other warehouse in the world. They'd travelled for forty-five minutes, maybe, he's guessing here, and beyond that, he doesn't know where he is.

It's standard looking lackeys, all muscle and no substance, and Arthur could figure out how to make that work for him if he had more on him than a pair of boxers and goosebumps rising in the cold.

"What is it, exactly, that you want?" Arthur asks, and they look bored.

"Who are you working for?" Arthur asks, and is greeted with stone silence.

The worst thing is that Arthur can't even begin to guess. The list of people he's pissed off in the past five years is longer than even he can remember, and the list of people pissed enough to go after him is almost as long.

But when the door opens, and the lackeys straighten up, go professional and cold in the blink of an eye, the gut punch of recognition hits him low in the stomach.

Eames walks in.

"I shouldn't be surprised," Arthur says, but the worst part of it all is that he thinks he should be, that he _is_.

Eames looks ill, looks absolutely sick to his stomach, and Arthur is, dimly, glad.

"How much did they offer you?" Arthur asks, and Eames comes close, close enough to touch, if Arthur wasn't bound to the chair.

"Debts are a bitch, darling," Eames says. "And they're cleared now."

Arthur spits in his face.

Eames takes a step back. He doesn't bother to wipe it off. His face is a cold mask now, no sign of the guilt that had been running through his entire body. Now there's just nothing.

"You're shaking," Eames says, quiet.

"That happens," Arthur says. "When you're kidnapped in nothing but your underwear."

"Someone get him a blanket," Eames says. "It doesn't do to be cruel."

One of the lackeys, a slightly taller one, going bald early, moves to obey.

Eames crouches down in front of the chair, so that they're almost eye to eye.

"Just me?" Arthur asks.

"Just you," Eames says.

"Information or revenge?" Arthur asks.

Eames is quiet for a moment. "The latter," he says, finally.

"How likely is it I'm going to die here?" Arthur asks.

Eames doesn't say anything. That's answer enough.

"How likely is it that they're going to break me first?" Arthur asks.

Eames looks away, over at the wall.

Arthur exhales, slow. "If I make it out of this," he says. "I will tear you apart piece by piece."

"I'll count on it," Eames says, standing. "You're as beautiful as always, Arthur."

"Go fuck yourself," Arthur says, and watches Eames walk away.

After a few minutes the balding lackey comes back and throws a blanket over Arthur's shoulder. It feels like a slap in the face, the one nicety before the firing squads. A last meal. "Fuck off," he tells the man, and the actual slap, a lazy backhand, feels almost good in comparison.

Arthur tongues his split lip and shrugs the blanket off his shoulders.

He sits there, in the cold, for what feels like hours, and probably is. Light's coming through the high windows of the warehouse, and the men stationed on either side of him are shifting from foot to foot, bored and antsy. They're clearly waiting for something; probably the men Eames handed him over to, whoever they are. It doesn't really matter who.

The last time Arthur had seen Eames was in Dubai, working for some dubious oil heir, who was slowly running his father's business into the ground. They just needed a little information to turn the slow slide into a nosedive.

They got it, and a fat paycheck, split amongst them and a second rate extractor, a decent architect. They'd gone to Arthur's room, after, seeming miles above the city, and celebrated, in their way, Arthur's leg hitched around Eames' waist as he moved in him, the roll of his hips slow, almost lazy, all satisfaction with a job well done. They couldn't stop smiling at one another, and Arthur had wondered why that was.

It wasn't the first time they'd fucked. The first time they'd fucked it'd been fast and hard and almost ugly, the both of them high on adrenaline and recent death. Arthur's white shirt had been spattered with blood, and when Eames had taken it off of him, there'd still been marks, sticky, on his chest.

Eames had licked it off, and Arthur had gotten off on it. Just like that, men's blood on their hands, on their skin, sticky on the soles of their shoes, and they rutted against one another like they'd die if they couldn't touch, Arthur's throat a long line as he tipped his head back and Eames' mouth plush, teeth sharp, as he tore into the line he'd made, ripping marks, bloody, into his neck.

Arthur tried to hide the marks, after. He threw out the shirt. He never quite stopped fucking Eames. Eventually he stopped thinking about it, thinking about ending things before they could turn into something more than a fuck, more than the brutality it had started as. It had become less about getting one another's clothes off and more about the quiet after they were finished, staring at the ceiling, Eames warm all up the side of him.

The last time he'd seen Eames was in the airport, Eames jetting off to France, Arthur to LA. Arthur's flight was an hour before Eames', and Eames came early with him. They didn't touch in public, not really, not more than Eames' hand latching on his wrist at one moment, and Eames' voice was low as he said "Take care of yourself," like Arthur hadn't been doing that his entire life.

Arthur had wanted to kiss him quiet, but he didn't. He'd wanted to say something that would explain what was blooming in his chest, tight in his throat, but he didn't have the words, so instead he just smiled. Eames had smiled back, wide, entirely real, and Arthur had thought maybe he'd gotten it.

That was five days ago, and now he's in a room, claustrophobic despite the scale of it, all open space and two men tucked close. He's waiting for the people who want to kill him, but only after making him desperate to die.

Arthur has never been accused of caring too easily, of trusting too easily. For once he should be, should be appalled by himself, because he found himself trusting Eames, found himself weak to him, a gambler and a thief and a con-man, and it's a mistake he's going to die for. It's a funny thought, but Arthur isn't laughing.

*

Eames comes in when the light hits high in the windowpanes.

"Your employers are late," Arthur says.

"They're not my employers," Eames says, then spares a considering glance at the men flanking him. "Get out."

They don't move.

"Now," Eames says, and finally, reluctantly, they leave the room.

"Is this where you tell me you have a secret plan?" Arthur asks. "Or just where you apologize and tell me I was the best fuck you ever had."

"You really were," Eames says. His mouth twists.

"One more?" Arthur asks, dry. "For old times' sake?"

"You'd bite my prick off, but it's a nice thought," Eames says. He gathers the blanket from the ground, tucks it around Arthur, careful. "You'll catch your death of cold."

"I think I'm going to die of other causes first," Arthur says. "But thanks for the belated concern."

Eames pulls a gun out from the waist of his pants. Arthur looks at it, then meets Eames eyes. He can't figure out what he sees in them. "They aren't going to be happy if you kill me before they get a chance to make me beg," Arthur says. "People get their kicks from that. I know you do."

"You know, I thought I was in love with you," Eames says.

"But you were wrong?" Arthur asks.

"No," he says, and slams the gun into Arthur's face.

*

Arthur wakes up in the back of a speeding vehicle. His hands are cuffed behind his back, twisted uncomfortably.

Eames looks at him in the rearview mirror. "Good morning sunshine," he says.

Arthur stares at him. His head is throbbing, something sticking, tacky, to his cheek. He assumes it's blood.

"I figured you'd be more likely to attempt to kill me than assist in your escape," Eames says. "So I improvised. Welcome to the getaway car."

"You improvised," Arthur repeats. Everything is coming to him slow, groggy. "In helping me escape from the situation you put me in."

"In my defense," Eames says, "those debt collectors were quite intent on taking my testicles, and I rather need them. And besides, I killed some men who were interested in killing you. All in all, I'd say it was a good job."

"And you couldn't have told me about this before you threw me to the wolves?" Arthur asks. There's a flood of something in his chest that feels like nothing more or less than relief. It's taking over everything, including his ability to retain any sort of anger, any sort of hurt about this.

"Sorry, darling," Eames says. "You're an appalling actor."

Arthur meets his eyes in the mirror.

"See?" Eames says. "Right now you're attempting to look disgusted, but mostly you look impressed at my brilliant plan."

And god help him, he is.

"I'm still going to tear you apart," Arthur says.

"I bet you are," Eames says, and Arthur can practically feel the smirk crossing Eames' face.

"Not sexually, Eames," Arthur corrects, unable to help a smile from crossing his face. It reopens the split in his lip, and he bites down against the burn. "I'm never having sex with you again."

"Like I said," Eames says. "Terrible actor. You'll be all over me as soon as I stop this car, cuffs or no."

Arthur really, truly hates when Eames is right, but he's shaky with adrenaline and a head wound and the high of being alive when that was the last thing he'd been expecting. It figures only Eames could turn backstabbing into foreplay.

"I hate you," Arthur says, and waits for Eames to call him on it.

"Liar," Eames says. Arthur can see the bloom of his smile in the mirror, giddy, proud of himself for a job well done. And there's something else in it, something Arthur's only started to figure out.

"And when you stop this car," Arthur says. "We're having a long talk about the fact you're in love with me."

"You should know that I am never stopping this car," Eames says, and Arthur feels, suddenly, that for all the day had involved, he's the one to score the deepest hit.

It's a good feeling.


End file.
